Why It's Important to Include Adjunct Faculty

It's common knowledge that adjunct faculty members teach more than half of the courses at community colleges in America, and in developmental education that number is at about 75% and growing. Developmental education programs are often the place where new faculty are "tried out," so to speak. If an instructor is new to the college, and especially if s/he is new to teaching, s/he is assigned a developmental course. The first courses I ever taught were developmental English courses, in fact.

There are a number of reasons for this. One is that there aren't enough full-time faculty members to go around. Budgets are shrinking, and adjuncts are simply more affordable. Another is that the number of students placing into developmental programs has grown significantly over the past several years, which has led to rapid growth in the number of developmental courses offered, sometimes at the last minute if there is a sudden influx of new students. Also, in developmental programs, the full-time faculty frequently teach at least one college-level course, and many teach more, especially if developmental programs are not housed in a separate department. This phenomenon is less common in degree programs. The practice is not bad, and should be encouraged, but the result is that more developmental sections need to be staffed with part-time faculty.

High turnover rates have an effect on the number of new and/or inexperienced faculty who teach in developmental programs. It's rare to get a part-time instructor who is a developmental education specialist. Most have degrees in the content areas (literature, mathematics), and if given the opportunity to teach higher-level courses, they take it. Many times, part-time faculty in developmental education programs "work their way up" to teaching college-level classes. Those who do specialize in developmental education are snapped up quickly for full-time positions.

With all of that being said, implied in this pairing is that both groups -- students taking developmental courses and part-time faculty -- are somehow inferior. Developmental programs become a stepping stone, a place for people to get their feet wet and see if they're any good at teaching. In fact, I have heard colleagues at my own and other institutions say that they thought so-and-so (adjunct faculty member) wasn't a good teacher, so they assigned him/her a "basic" course or sent him/her to teach in the developmental department. At first I was shocked and appalled. Now I'm still appalled, but shock has been replaced with frustration at the number of times I've heard comments like this.

We are in need of a massive cultural shift. If the trend continues, and I see no reason why it will not, the percentage of part-time faculty teaching classes at community colleges is only going to grow. If colleges and especially developmental programs are going to survive on the backs of adjuncts, this contribution needs to be recognized and appreciated. Lip service is not enough.

One shift to make is in hiring practices. We need our best teachers in developmental courses. They should be seasoned, trained instructors who know not only about content but also the college in which they work. Their students are at risk for more than just academic reasons, and the students' first experiences in college are likely to determine the path of the rest of their college careers, including whether they even stay in college. Colleges need to do everything they can to make sure those first experiences are positive, and that includes assigning the best and brightest to developmental courses.

They should be informed and trained on more than teaching and content. In order to be of best service to students, they need to know how a college operates and its major policies. They need to know where to find answers when they do not know something, and they need to be given access to information, including student records. They need technology support, administrative support, and teaching materials.

Additionally, part-time faculty should be recognized as experts with something to offer. They should be included in decisions made in and by colleges. Their opinions should be sought out and listened to. They should be encouraged to showcase their best practices and asked to be a part of an intellectual community.

Even the word "adjunct" is problematic. Dictionary.com defines "adjunct" as "something added to another thing but not essential to it; a person associated with lesser status, rank, authority, etc., in some duty or service; assistant" before it gives the definition, "a person working at an institution, as a college or university, without having full or permanent status," which is still unflattering. As an adjective, "adjunct" means "joined or associated, especially in an auxiliary or subordinate relationship; attached or belonging without full or permanent status." (All emphasis is mine.) At this point, I don't think there is a college in America who would say that part-time faculty are not essential to its operations. Colleges need to support part-time faculty as much as the part-time faculty support them.

Reading Across the Curriculum

Writing across the Curriculum, it seems, has been a part of our education system forever. In reality,  "WAC" didn't come about until the 1970s, when James Britton and others fostered "writing to learn," that is, the idea that writing about a topic helps students learn important content information.

Since then there's been a love/hate relationship between the education system and WAC. WAC has been retooled as WID (Writing in the Disciplines) and later WAD (Writing across the Disciplines). The three are not necessarily the same, but they are all founded on the same idea that writing doesn't belong just in English classes.

What about Reading across the Curriculum? RAC (or Reading across the Disciplines--RAD--which sounds a bit more hip), doesn't have nearly as prominent a place in higher education. A quick Google search brings up RAC initiatives mostly in elementary and high schools. When students enter college, if they come in at the college level, it's assumed that they "know" how to read.

There seems to me to be a bit of a paradox here. We acknowledge that students may need to learn to write differently for different disciplines. A report for a chemistry class will look different from an essay for a history class. The same thing is true for reading. Different texts change the way we read. We are looking for different things from a newspaper than from a novel. Even different novels are read differently. Engaging with the latest James Paterson novel will be a different experience from reading The Portrait of a Lady. We teach our students to write "like scientists," for example, and think "like scientists," but do we teach them how to read like scientists? I'm not so sure.

In "Reading Across the Curriculum as the Key to Student Success"(2007), Alice S. Horning makes an argument for more reading instruction at the college level. She states, "students are uneducated in ways [of reading] that derive from reading a wide variety of materials and seeing varied points of view, research, and information relating to ideas or issues." Some acknowledge that students "can't read," yet we repeatedly ask and expect them to read without further instruction on how to do so. As Horning points out, the unfortunate result is that students don't do the reading at all.

Reading instruction should not be consigned to "basic skills" departments. As with writing, students need continually to be taught new ways to read and to have them reinforced in their college-level classes.


 Reference
 Horning, Alice S. (2007, May 14). Reading across the curriculum as the key to student success. Across the Disciplines, 4. Retrieved October 17, 2013, from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/horning2007.cfm

TYCA Northeast 48th Annual Conference

The TYCA Northeast Annual Conference has come to New Jersey and Hudson County Community College is one of the host colleges! We are very excited to have the opportunity to sponsor a major regional conference.

This year the conference will take place in historic Morristown, NJ at the Morristown Hyatt, on October 3-5. The conference theme is "R/evolutions: Addressing Pedagogical and Institutional Change in Higher Education." Conference sessions will discuss innovations in pedagogy and andragogy in the English classroom, whether it is composition, developmental writing, ESL, creative writing, or writing across the curriculum. Other topics include high school/college collaboration initiatives, moving from faculty to college administrator, the future of journalism, and the impact of legislation on developmental education.

HCCC is sending two of our own to present at the conference: AF English instructor Sean Egan will present Teaching Grammar as Though It Were an Interesting Subject (Because It Is) and Dean of Arts and Sciences Christopher Wahl will speak on a the Cengage Learning-sponsored breakfast panel "From Professor to Administrator."

In addition, Friday's keynote speaker is Gary Shteyngart, author of the novels The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Absurdistan and Super Sad True LoveStory, and frequent contributor to The New Yorker. Born in Russia, Shteyngart uses his experience as an immigrant to take a look at American culture from an outside perspective, with satirical and often hilarious results.

Our Saturday keynote speaker Richard Miller brings with him innovations in teaching and learning and is at the forefront of using technology as a way to engage students and stimulate critical thinking. Miller is the author of As if Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education and Writing at the End of the World. He is a professor at Rutgers University and is taking a leave from teaching English to teach in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Social Work this academic year.

Other conference highlights include two cocktail parties and a musical performance, sponsored by publishers Bedford/St. Martins and Pearson and breakfast sponsored by Cengage Learning.

For more information about the conference or to register, go to www.tycanortheast.org.

Summer Musings on Developmental Education

http://iggandfriends.wordpress.com/

It's been a busy year, but with summer more than half over, it looks like we're finally settling back into a routine--one that should include regular blog posts.

Developmental Education has been a hot topic of late, nation-wide. Changes abound, whether it is the legislative phasing out of developmental ed. in Connecticut, required "flexibility" in Florida, or various acceleration plans, like those started in Baltimore and California. People are wondering if developmental education "works" (most think not) and what can be done about it.

Part of this intense scrutiny comes from the changes in the Pell grant regulations. With the new regulations, fewer students will qualify for Pell grants, and those who do will have a lower cap on the length of time they're available. As a result, it's more important than ever before to get students into their college-level classes quickly. If they're not careful, they could use up a large amount of their Pell money in developmental classes and not be able to complete their degree.

Many people, especially DE faculty, are cautious, however. They want to make sure that standards are upheld and that the students who go to college-level classes are actually ready for them. Otherwise, it's the same issue at a different level.

And then there's the Common Core.The Common Core is a set of state-wide standards for entry into college-level work. So far, they've been adopted by 45 states. The standards run across disciplines, but the buzz has been about changes in math and language arts. These standards have a major impact on developmental education, since, at least in Common Core states, DE classes will have to meet them as well.

In my own institution, all of these changes mean some major changes for us. We already offer students the possibility of exiting to college level from any of our 4 developmental English levels. We'll be working harder than ever before to increase the number of students who do so. This  may mean an increase in summer enrichment programs for students who complete the coursework but don't meet the exit requirements. It may mean increased support outside of the classroom. It may mean something else we haven't tried yet.

We're also working on adapting the CCBC Accelerated Learning Program to our own needs, with an eye toward piloting in Spring 2014. (The faculty are very excited about this program, as am I. Other schools who use it have shown incredible results.)

Finally, we need to make changes in our curriculum to reflect the Common Core Standards. This means refocusing some of our objectives, adding some outcomes, and possibly removing others.

We have our work cut out for us, but it promises to be an exciting year, one that will improve our teaching, our learning, and our students' experiences here.

Literacy Day

Hudson County Community College celebrated its 6th Annual Literacy Day on March 2, Dr. Seuss' birthday. 

Dovetailing with Read Across America Day, this event was a festival of reading and fun for children of Hudson County and their parents. Activities included games, arts and crafts, a reading theater, and refreshments. Over 125 children and their parents were in attendance, the largest turnout yet.

This year the event was held in HCCC's Culinary Conference Center, a change from years past. The Conference Center, aside from offering attractive facilities, provided ample space and the availability of light food for purchase. (Free healthy snacks and juice were available for the children.) According to Dean Christopher Wahl, "The renaissance of this event was conceived at the first Synergy Meeting chaired by Ana Chapman last summer.... [The event committee was] able to invite representatives from Enrollment Services and Noncredit to distribute material about college offerings." In addition, a representative from the Division of Youth and Family Service’s Adoptive Foster Care Program was present to distribute information about local fostering and adoption opportunities.

HCCC faculty and staff served as volunteers to facilitate the event. Especially instrumental were Prof. Kathryn Buckley, Prof. Sean Egan, Elizabeth Nesius, Prof. Timothy Peacock, and Prof. Brian Plunkett from Academic Foundations; Prof. Katie Sweeting and Prof. Julie Willis from Humanities; and George Heffelle, Director of the Conference Center. Prof. Sharon D'Agastino (Academic Foundations) chaired the planning committee and coordinated the entire event.

Over nine boxes of age-appropriate books were distributed to children who attended, as well as a "goody bag" containing crayons, colored pencils, Dr. Seuss bookmarks, erasers and activities pages. Books were also distributed by First Books, represented by Lorenzo Richardson. 

 The New Jersey Journal was present, taking photographs. You can view a slideshow of the images here. 

HCCC would like to thank all of the volunteers and participants who made this event such a success. We're already looking forward to next year!